Damn Cold Night
by Hojo
Summary: Hojo faces Lucrecia's death.


Damn Cold Night  
  
The sun was shining, showing off the brilliant reds and pinks of the rose garden. I could see them perfectly from my second-floor window. They were joyful, passionate flowers.  
  
I took my glasses off, reducing them to a bloody puddle of color. How dare the sun shine? It seemed the weather was always conspiring against me. I thought about the day Lucrecia and I were married, out among the roses. Vincent was my best man, and Ifalna was her maid of honor. Water poured from the sky all afternoon, and it was dark enough to be sunset. Lucrecia's dress was soaked through, but somehow she managed to glow as if the dress were phosphorescent. We shivered in each other's arms as the local priest pronounced us man and wife.  
  
That day was glorious, despite the rain. This day was damn cold, despite the sun.  
  
I pulled the shades closed, trying to darken the room. Light crept in anyway, sneaking in along the edges to steal my energy for heat. I sat down on our bed, shivering. Even the bed was cold. Hell, the bed was colder than anything. I'd spent last night on the couch in the front room, staring at some book from the shelves, unable to stomach the empty room.  
  
The hallway was silent. The entire mansion was silent. Vincent's boots weren't clomping around importantly. Ifalna wasn't singing. Gast wasn't tripping over everything. Lucrecia wasn't... well, Lucrecia wasn't doing much of anything, was she?  
  
The bed was so very cold as I curled up on it. I think the tears froze as they slipped from my eyes.  
  
It was blessedly dark when I woke up. I stared into the shadows until I thought I saw her there, then sat up quickly. I had to get out of that room. Out of the mansion. I slipped my feet into sandals, ignoring the fact that I was still wearing the clothes from the day of Sephiroth's birth. Three days isn't so long, I told myself. Putting my glasses on was an afterthought.  
  
I passed his room as I left our wing. He was sleeping soundly, much too soundly for a newborn. My breath caught in my throat, and I slipped into the room to check on him. Ifalna was there, slumped in the armchair next to the crib. I watched Sephiroth's chest rise and fall rhythmically, hardly believing that he was still breathing. I had a son, and he was all I had. The human mind does not handle change well.  
  
I didn't want to end up in the rose garden, but I couldn't avoid it. The moonlight was clear as ice, casting the garden as a moment in time. A moment frozen in crystal. Suddenly I couldn't bear the thought of Lucrecia left there to the heat of a sun she couldn't feel, to the whims of the weather that had always cursed us.   
  
The dirt on her grave was still loose, and I'd left the shovel just inside the door to the shed. We'd buried her in the Cetran style, no casket to keep her from returning to the Planet. It seemed I hardly had to begin digging before the shovel was turning up the loose ends of her shroud. She was a small woman and easy to carry.   
  
I knew just the place to take her. I walked through the woods behind the mansion, along the thin valley between Mt. Nibel and the rest of the Nibel range. Slowly the woodland tapered into beach, bordering a small spring in the center of mountainous surroundings. Almost there, almost, and I hardly felt the weight of her body.  
  
We had only been to the crystalline cave a precious few times. Lucrecia called it a sacred place. I thought her poetry a bit much, but I'd smiled at her. We came only in the most private moments. I asked her to marry me there. By the time I laid her down on the ground, my vision was blurring. For a confused minute, I thought I'd forgotten my glasses. Then I realized my eyes were tearing again. I fought them back, frustrated at my own weakness. I should have been able to save her. What good are medical degrees?  
  
The sun would be up soon. I had to have her safe before then. I picked her body up again, carried her farther back into the cave, to a small inlet in the wall that the sun would never reach. I set her down carefully, then tried to arrange the shroud neatly. It slipped away from her cheek. After a glimpse of her skin, I couldn't resist unwrapping the fabric from her face.  
  
She was still beautiful, even with the skin almost transparent and the blue veins frozen beneath. Her eyes were closed. Her lips parted slightly as the wrapping slipped from her jaw. She reminded me suddenly of Jenova, sleeping now in her makou chamber. Both of them sleeping, leaving without me.  
  
Her lips were hard and slick, waxy beneath my own, and I hardly realized what I was doing. It was just a kiss, after all. I'd had many from her when her lips were warm.  
  
The chill of her skin seeped into my own, trickling through me like makou in my veins. I imagined Lucrecia reaching to me, her voice whispering beside the gentle singing Jenova had been reduced to. I rewrapped her face, suddenly afraid. Her body leaned forward against me, and for a moment it seemed we were shivering in each others arms again.  
  
It was still dark when I left the cave. I was damp from perspiration and shivering in my dew-soaked sandals. The walk back to the mansion was much longer than the journey out had been. I was alone, thinking, trying not to think.  
  
I filled in the hole in the rose garden and put the shovel away. It wasn't likely anyone would guess what I'd done. The sun was hinting at the horizon as I turned back to the house. The sky was overcast, and a brilliant purplish red was rising through the clouds. I smiled as I shut the door behind me, ready to sleep. 


End file.
